


It's not paradise.

by ESH_es



Series: Two sides of paradise [3]
Category: Lucifer (TV)
Genre: Angst, Daddy Issues, F/M, Father-Son Relationship, Grief/Mourning, Hurt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-27
Updated: 2020-09-27
Packaged: 2021-03-08 04:20:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,681
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26679631
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ESH_es/pseuds/ESH_es
Summary: After his father's death - set approximately a year after the events of "Untangling the knots" - Michael enables Lucifer to visit Wales in order to pay his father a last visit.
Relationships: Chloe Decker/Lucifer Morningstar, God & Lucifer Morningstar (Lucifer TV), Michael & Lucifer Morningstar (Lucifer TV)
Series: Two sides of paradise [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1829833
Comments: 12
Kudos: 51





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hey peeps! 
> 
> To everyone who is new here - this will make a lot more sense if you have read "Eden's playground" and/or "Untangling the knots". 
> 
> To everyone who comes straight from the last work - you know what's been going on, I let you get to it. 
> 
> Chapter 1 will be a few essential quotes for those who haven't read and won't read the rest of "Two sides of paradise" before reading this (even though I hope you will still come by^^) 
> 
> The rest will be self-explanatory. 
> 
> Do listen to Paradise by Anderson Rocio for the optimal experience! 
> 
> Please keep the tags in mind! 
> 
> Let's get to it! Lots of love

"The first time his father had hit him was engraved in his mind in terrifying detail, because _Dad_ had never done that, not once before God had died. The impact of a hand and a stinging in his cheek and his eyes as he gaped with cheeks heating up in humiliation. His father’s cold expression morphing into horror and regret as he cradled his face with the same rough hands that had just hurt him, while he pressed choked kisses to his hair, telling him how sorry he was. That he hadn’t meant it. "

"But it had been at one point so far back in the past it was nothing more but a distant memory. His father showing them how to play the piano, taking them to the lake to teach them how to skip rocks – the most bloody useless thing he could imagine, but you didn’t mind a whole lot when you were ten, did you? – him sitting cross legged on the floor with them as they played. And at some point the fighting started, the time had begun where he would cover his ears at night, back to back with Mika on the too narrow mattress, where Dad would become distant, even if he had his moments of clarity during which he scooped them up in his arms and tell them some hilarious anecdote that _had_ to be made up as far fetched as it was. Until those times stopped too and all he knew was pain and fear and the haze of alcohol and drugs."

“So”, Lucifer’s voice was hoarse in the small room and Michael lifted his head to look at him, “so, Dad is not doing well?”

For a moment he just stared from his kneeling position in front of his suitcase as if he was asking him why he bloody cared and to be honest he didn’t even know why he did. Then he sat back onto his heels, bracing himself for an answer. 

“His health has been deteriorating for a while now. Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. Degradation of his braincells responsible for motor function”, he added at Lucifer’s helpless expression." 


	2. Chapter 2

When Michael had called him and told him God had died the rug had been pulled from his feet, again, because it meant he was one step closer to losing his brother to the same thing that had eaten up any semblance of his father when he had taken over Caelum. It had gnawed slowly but steadily at his essence the same way the disease had done with his neurons. So, he had nodded, bereft of feelings, never having felt so numb before. Weren’t you supposed to feel the loss and grief sitting deep in your bones when someone tells you one of your parents just died?

He couldn’t even say that his father battled his illness. For one he hadn’t been there to witness it, on the other hand how could he fight, when his muscles had lost their function, had chained him to a wheelchair and taken his ability to talk, to shout, to swallow as the disease did with most patients?

Heaving a sigh, he buried his fists in his coat’s pockets, he had forgotten how cold it was back here. It was all the Doctor’s fault really. All he would get was a cold, but closure? He didn’t think so. But what could it hurt? At least he could see Michael, even if this was all his visit was good for. He had forgotten how exhilarating power felt, now that he was under his brother’s protection and air travel was as easy as getting groceries from the supermarket around the corner.

The ground under his boots was soft and his soles sank a little in the mud of the path. The bloody rain would never take much of a break around here. Leaves stuck to the ground, while the others had dried already, littering the ground in bursts of brown. A thin vail of clouds dimmed the sun, that fought with the wind that constantly blew the stubborn curl back into Lucifer’s face. Thanks for nothing.

His skin prickled with something he couldn’t name, something too heavy resting on his chest. Michael had assured him no one would be there, so that had to count for something, didn’t it? His feet carried him further along the path he had ran along to get away from his brother when they played catch. It felt familiar in an achingly sweet way.

Only when he reached its end, he pulled his hand out of his pocket to grip the cold metal of the gate, perfectly oiled as always as it swung open. For a moment he paused at the threshold, his heart suddenly hammering in his chest, his skin alive with tension.

Drawing in a deep breath he shoved his hands back into the depths of his warm coat and soldiered on. Paying the rows no mind, paying the _dead_ no mind, because why would he care? – he marched on, his feet moving on their own. He had only been here once, the day the God before his father had been buried, but he still remembered. There were things you didn’t forget, not ever. His scars pulled glumly along his shoulder blades, the fabric of his shirt rubbing their rough surface.

The gravel crunched underneath his feet and reverberated in the silent hallways of gravestones. The eerie atmosphere allowed him to breathe even though his chest constricted tightly. The wind was cool and familiar in the way an old favourite song was as he turned. The gravel gave way to the softness of meadow, the grass pitiful between the fallen leaves. He halted, froze rather a few rows away from his goal. He could still turn around. Could turn around and ignore the reality, live in his blissful ignorance. Meet up with Michael and talk for a while before he would fly home, would open the door to the apartment Chloe and him shared, only to be met with a screeched “Lucifer!” and a hug attack of the urchin, while the Detective would press a quick peck to his cheek, before making her way to the kitchen to start preparing dinner only for him to follow as soon as he had wrestled himself from the urchin’s vice and ridded himself of coat and shoes.

But even if he was many things, a coward he was not. Blowing out a short breath he stepped towards the black stone, his movements slow, hesitant. His gaze directed towards the ground so he wouldn’t trip over something – or so he would tell himself – he came to a stop. His fists clenched in his pockets.

There were flowers littering the designated patch, a few candles were spread like bonfires in the night as they weakly flickered in the day light. Black stone throned like polished obsidian above the arrangements, a socially mandatory waste of perfectly good plants if someone asked him. Engraved in golden letters there it was. The confirmation that felt like a hit into his stomach, but he had taken enough hits in his life to know you didn’t show weakness, you didn’t admit defeat.

His features set in cold stone he skimmed across the little quote beneath his father’s name.

_Heaven awaits._

He scoffed at that, his lips quirking into a disgusted grimace. If there was a place for him to go it would be hell.

_Tell him everything you have been too afraid to say to him before._

He shook his head. It was useless, a bloody waste of time. He wasn’t here to hear it anymore, was he? What good was it that he couldn’t say what had been burning on his tongue for decades into his face?

He bit the inside of his cheek. His jaw was so taut, it ached already. Staring at his name, he released a tense huff. His lip quivered with the next breath. He pictured his father’s face with a precision that would haunt him for the rest of his life. The emotionless gaze, dark like his own eyes, his jaw had the same cut as his and Michael’s. He would lean back and regard him with disdain, some sort of mild interest mixed with indifference.

He swallowed. Then –

“I hate you.”

And as soon as the words left his lips it felt like the first clog in a dam had been undone. Another shaking breath as he stared at the grave, the remains of his father’s body were all that was left along with an empire that had ruined not only his life but had torn his whole family apart.

“You were supposed to be there for us”, he spit, his voice shaking, as were the hands in the pockets of his coat, “You were supposed to be the person to protect us.”

You were supposed to love us, were supposed to be strong for us.

“But you weren’t”, his voice was thin as he sniffed, “You were so bloody weak. And I resent you for it.”

He remembered lying in the dark after the Recruitment, his body aching and hurting and too tense from torture and emotional strain when steps sounded in front of his room. His hand had already slipped underneath his pillow, clutching the springer knife with aching fingers when his father’s voice had sounded through the hallway, a thump of a back hitting the wall in resignation.

_You were right, Charlotte. You were right, we should have left when we had the chance. You were right._

The last syllable was a hoarse sob, a sound that tore through his heart like a knife only days ago through his skin to leave wounds that still hurt. He could have pretended it had meant something – a father standing in front of his sons’ rooms at night, crying over the mistakes he made, but it hadn’t meant _anything._ Not in the light of countless bruises that littered his skin, not in the light of him chocking, clawing at his father’s hands, pleading for him to stop. Not when he had done the same mistakes over and over again.

If his father would have woken them that night and told them they were leaving he would have followed him blindly with a faith in a man, that had let him down again and again after he had taken over Caelum.

“Why weren’t you there?”, he barked into the silence, only the wind as his witness. What was a rant at thin air for anybody else was catharsis for him.

“ _Why weren’t you there_?”

It left his lips in a low sob as the first tear that had clung desperately to his lashes fell. It spilled across his cheek, in a hot drop – the beginning of a rivulet – cold as the wind dried it. The golden lettering melted and swam in the black stone, like something had disturbed the surface of a lake mirroring the sky in it.

“And”, he swallowed, trying to compose himself, “And you know, I waited for years for you to come back, to escape this – this thing you became, for my _Dad_ to come back.”

If he had been there now, in this vision Lucifer had created in his mind, and gotten up, his expression morphing into the loving one he recognized from his childhood, if he had wrapped his arms around him, pressing a rough kiss to his temple and asked him to forgive him, he would have. He would have forgiven him _everything_.

But he wasn’t there. And he would never be back. Another thing ripped from him.

For a moment he wished he would have come and would have visited him when he had been sick. He could have at least searched his face, his eyes for a hint of regret, an inkling of love. Maybe he would’ve even smiled at him, blinking the slow way his father did when he had told him he loved him. God, he couldn’t remember the last time that happened anymore. The image of his father weak and helpless in a wheel chair, closer to the man that had been his Dad – without power or might – than _God_ had ever been, made him want to wrap him up in his arms, involuntarily, because he was supposed to _hate_ him, he _did_ hate him.

Michael had told him he had nothing to say to this man, but there were so many things Lucifer wanted to say –

_I miss you._

_I am sorry, I didn’t come back._

_I am glad you’re gone._

_I want you to be here._

Tears burned his skin as his body shook, too heavy the weight of his past lay on his shoulders.

His Dad and him had played a game when he was young, that every time he came into the living room, he would shout “Sammy, the C!” and a younger, a carefree version of him had dashed off to the piano to press the right key, only for his father’s face to light up in pride.

_You are a clever one, Sammy._

His excitement had been so palpable, so much like Beatrice’s. The mere thought of the girl hurt stoked a fire inside him that burned through his veins, had him shaking in pure disgust. A sea of colours, smudged like water colours drawn on a wet canvas swam in front of him.

“I hate you.”

The sob was too loud on the quiet graveyard as he hunched down, curling into himself. His hands were out of his pockets and holding himself together, his blurring sight stuck on the towering tombstone. Sounds tearing themselves loose from his mouth, hoarse gasps and chokes of clear air, lips tasting of salt and snot.

_I hate you. I hate you. I hate you._

He cried for all that had been taken from them, cried for all the things they could have had if it hadn’t been for Heaven. He cried for the chances he lost, for the hug he would never receive from his father, for the apology he would never hear.

Only when there was nothing left in him, no grief, no pain, nothing but numbness in his cheeks, in his gut, in his limbs and he was able to take full breaths again, he managed to wipe the tears from his face, the fabric of his sleeves rough against his skin. He sat down in the lightly damp grass and stared at the name he could finally read again. Nothing in his own name connected to the one on the stone anymore. He hadn’t been Samael Johnson in a long time.

_Rather reign in hell than serve in heaven._ He had loved this quote for a while, it had given him a purpose when he had rebelled. And his father had let him. _God_ had let him rebel. And maybe the distaste, the irritation hadn’t been directed at him per se, but at how things were.

He took another breath, inhaled deeply through his nose and let it out through his mouth. His cheeks were damp and too taut. Another breath of cool air. His heartbeat trembled again, only for a second before it slowed.

“Well”, he croaked, sniffing, “I guess that was it then.”

He nodded to himself, because – good talk. Slowly but eventually he pushed himself onto his feet. He cleared his throat, brushed off his trousers and butt absentmindedly. He hovered in front of the grave, before he nodded to himself – this was it – and turned to go, walking straight this time, towards the other gate.

He moved past the tombstone, slowly, halting for a last time. His fingers caressed too cold stone and looking up to the pale blue sky he could pretend it was his father’s shoulder.

Wishing, desperately this time, he could hear him, he swallowed, a hint of a grimace that should be a smile into the heavens.

“Love you, Dad.”


	3. Chapter 3

> _"It's not paradise, but if you look close enough you'll see -_ That it used to be paradise once upon a time."
> 
> -kitlyn_221B


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